SATURDAY GOVT CAPS CAB AGGREGATORS’ COMMISSION AT 20% OF FARE 28 As per the Motor Vehicle Aggregator Guidelines issued by the Transport ministry on Friday, 80% of the total fare must go to driver partners NOVEMBER, 2020 epaper.morningstandard.in facebook.com/TheMorningStandard twitter.com/TheMornStandard 15-DAY Training must be AUSSIE TOUR MEN IN BLUE LOSE FIRST ODI provided for new drivers SURGE PRICING LIMIT FIXED AT 1.5% Chasing 375, India lost by 66 runs despite Hardik Pandya’s breezy knock of 90 A CAPITAL VIEW OF NEWS PAGE 11  NEW DELHI  J8.00  PAGES 12 The rules stipulate that the surge price imposed during peak hours be capped at 1.5 times the base fare. Aggregators can charge 50% lower than the base fare when the demand is low. If taxi fare is not fixed, I25-30 will be the base fare | P10 Delhi gate opens after clashes Farmers permitted to hold protest at capital’s Burari ground, but opt to stay put at border EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE @ New Delhi/Chandigarh/Lucknow Police fire water canon on farmers marching towards Delhi, protesting the Centre’s farm reforms, at Singhu Border | SHEKHAR YADAV After intense clashes at the Delhi border, Union agriculture minister Narendra Singh Tomar reaches out, invites farmers’ organisations for a fresh round of talks on the new farm laws on December 3 With the AAP supporting the agitation, the Delhi govt rejects the Delhi Police’s request to convert stadiums inside the city into temporary jails to house the detained farmers COVID SPREAD AAP GOVT SAT IDLE DESPITE SOS, CENTRE TELLS SC not take steps to enhance testing capacity particularly , THE Centre on Friday for RT-PCR, which remained blamed the Delhi govern- static at around 20,000 for a ment for the worsening of long time. Proper containCovid-19 situation in the na- ment measures were not tional capital, stating that taken, the affidavit stated. no effective preventive steps It further stated that dewere taken to contain spite being aware that the the infection. confluence of winter, festiThe ruling AAP, in turn, val season and pollution was termed the charges as unfor- likely to cause a surge in tunate and asked cases, strict and the Centre to stop timely enforceplaying “dirty poliment of measures tics” and instead wasn’t done. While there were cooperate with the “While there were regular state government advertisements on regular advertisein fighting the achievements of the ments on achievepandemic. ments of the Delhi Delhi government, In an affidavit including on dengue gover nment, inprevention and filed in the apex cluding on dengue control, no ads on court, the Centre prevention and said the AAP gov- Covid-appropriate control, no ads on behaviour were to ernment was lax in Covid-appropriate be seen containing the panbehaviour were to demic, increasing be seen.” Centre’s affidavit the strain on mediThe Centre addcal infrastructure. ed that the high-powered VK It listed the 10 states that Paul Committee had recomcontribute “almost 77 per mended that Delhi should cent of the active caseload” plan for a surge of about in the country, with Delhi 15,000 cases per day and so (8.5%) standing on the third provide for about 6,500 ICU position after Maharashtra beds, but the Kejriwal gov(18.9%) and Kerala (14.7%). ernment “didn’t take any It said that “despite re- timely measures to increase peated exhortations” in the ICU beds, causing a sudden wake of rising Covid-19 cas- pressure on health and es, the Delhi government did medical infrastructure”. P4 K A N U S A R D A @ New Delhi TESTING STATUS 28,100 RTPCR/CBNAAT/ TrueNat tests conducted 61,04,158 Total tests done so far 3,21,271 Tests per million DELHI COVID WATCH STATUS OF CASES Today Cumulative RECOVERED 5,937 5,09,654 DEATH 98 8,909 ACTIVE CASES -38,181 TOTAL +VE CASES 5,482 5,56,744 PATIENT MANAGEMENT Total beds Occupied HOSPITAL 18,287 8,915 CARE CENTRE 8,217 488 HEALTH CENTRE 562 162 23,134 Vacant 9,372 7,707* 400 HOME ISOLATION *22 beds of CCC are occupied by persons under quarantine including travellers who came by Vande Bharat Mission and Bubble flights Source: Delhi health bulletin | November 27 “While a section of farmers want to block the highway to pressure the Centre, others want to protest at the designated Nirankari ground,’’ said a farmer leader on condition of anonymity THOUSANDS of farmers from Punjab and Haryana clashed at least thrice with the Delhi Police on Friday as they were prevented from entering the Capital even as Union agriculture minister Narendra Singh Tomar urged them to end the agitation and come for the third round of talks on December 3. “The government has always been ready to discuss issues. We have invited farmers’ organisations for another round of talks on December 3,” Tomar said in a statement. But his appeal hardly found EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE @ New Delhi INDIA’s economy, on a slowdown path since March 2018 and pummelled by the coronavirus pandemic, has officially entered recession with GDP growth contracting 7.5% yearon-year in the July-September 2020 quarter. This is, however, a notable improvement from the mindnumbing 23.9% decline in the previous three-month period (April-June 2020). Recession is when economic growth rate is negative for two consecutive quarters or more. Assuming a 5-6% trendline growth, the effective output loss during the first half of the current fiscal is upwards `20 lakh crore. On the brighter side, the data released by the National Statistics Office on Friday have come Chirag biggest loser as Sushil Modi gets RS by-election ticket E X P R E S S N E W S S E R V I C E @ New Delhi THE BJP on Friday nominated former Bihar deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi for the Rajya Sabha by-elections from the state necessitated after the demise of former Union minister and the Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) founder Ram Vilas Paswan. While the LJP was hoping to get a party nominee into the Rajya Sabha, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s JD(U) didn’t want any truck with the Chirag Paswan-led outfit. With the BJP leaning towards Nitish’s side, the JD(U) appears to have won this round against the LJP . The Rajya Sabha ticket is also a clear indication of the BJP taking Sushil Modi out of active politics at the state level, creating the ground for a role for him at the national level either in the government or the party. It also indicates that the BJP wants to groom an alternative leadership in Bihar to expand its footprint by accommodating representatives of the extremely backward castes as a counter to the social base of the opposition Rashtriya Janata Dal. The BJP had committed an RS seat for Ram Vilas Paswan in the run up to the 2019 Lok Sabha elections during its seat-sharing deal. BENGAL TRANSPORT MINISTER SUVENDU ADHIKARI QUITS As the Trinamool minister sent his resignation letter to the Secretariat and the Raj Bhavan, the BJP openly welcomed him to join its ranks | P8 Non-MBBS teachers fear job losses A decision by the National Medical Commission to reduce the ceiling for non-medical teachers in medical colleges and doing away with their appointment altogether in few subjects has sparked fear of job losses among such faculties. In the ‘Minimum Requirements for MBBS Admission Regulations 2020’ released in October, the permissible intake of non-medical faculty is down from 30% to 15% in anatomy and physiology, from 50% to 15% in biochemistry and from , 30% to 0% in microbiology and pharmacology . While teachers of clinical subjects are always doctors with MBBS and MS/MD degrees, there are also about 5,000-6,000 in the non-clinical subjects with medical MSc or PhDs — their designations ranging from tutor to professor and even HoDs. The practice of such appointments began in 1950s when not many doctors were pursuing PG in non-clinical specialties. across several districts of westUP and blocking highways. Officials in the Union Ministry of Home Affairs maintained that the government is in constant touch with the concerned states to maintain the law and order situation. In many areas along the Delhi border, such as Tikri, Singhu border, protesters refused to move to the Nirankari ground. At Tikri border, the Delhi Police took hundreds of farmers to the Nirankari ground but the protestors returned to the border. At Singhu, the farmers instead sought permission to protest at the Ram- lila maidan. “We are not moving anywhere now. We have enough dal, wheat and gas to prepare our own food,” said farmers at Singhu. “We will stay here till Saturday morning as more farmers are coming to join us. We are also in talks with our unions and representatives. Once they reach, we will move to the Nirankari ground.” Protests erupted in Rohtak as a Punjab farmer died and two others were injured on the way to Delhi in an accident as a truck hit their tractor-trolley from behind. Acting swiftly the , Haryana Police lodged a case against the truck driver. P5&7 Recession stays, but recovery faster than thought NEW RULES E X PRESS N EWS SERVICE @ New Delhii any takers as the far mers stayed put at Delhi’s doorstep, blocking the national highway to Chandigarh. They also ignored the Delhi Police, which after blocking their entry into the Capital, permitted them to go to the Nirankari ground in north Delhi’s Burari area to stage their protest. The farmers are also likely to open new fronts at Dabwali and Khanuari border on Saturday . The Punjab and Haryana farmers received support from their Uttar Pradesh counterparts, with the Bharatiya Kisan Union holding sit-in protests Now, the panel has said that the rules would be applicable only to the new colleges that would admit students into the 2021-22 batch as well as those that seek to raise intake of MBBS students. “This means that a nonmedical teacher would be forced to stay put in the same college until retirement, and all possibilities to seek new employment would be denied,” said Sridhar Rao, president of National M Sc Medical Teachers’ Association. Old rules gave space to many Contrastingly, the MCI’s previous guidelines allowed higher intakes of nonmedical teachers to teach pre and para clinical subjects to first and second year MBBS students. as a relief as various projections had pegged GDP growth to be much worse. Even Reserve Bank of India’s forecast was a contraction of 8.6%. This, according to economists, shows the economy is healing faster than thought. In absolute numbers, national output fell to `33.14 lakh crore from `35 lakh crore recorded in the year-ago period. In the previous quarter, it had stood at `26.9 lakh crore. So, on a sequential basis, it amounts to a growth of 23.2%. While the danger of a second CORE OUTPUT SHRINKS Contracting for the 8th straight month, the output of eight core infra sectors fell 2.5% in October, mainly due to decline in production of crude oil, natural gas, refinery products and steel wave of the pandemic still looms large, experts believe the worst may be over as most economic parameters have improved on the back of resumption in economic activities. For example, manufacturing and electricity sectors bounced back, growing 0.6% and 4.4%, respectively. Agriculture continued to grow, at 3.4%, while the trade and services sector showed lower-than-expected contraction at 15.6%.